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Erik Loomis has a fine post on Obama's kowtow to the mining lobby in Nevada:
Obama claims, ''What is clear to me is that the legislation that has been proposed places a significant burden on the mining industry and could have a significant impact on jobs." This is hogwash. Obama is simply repeating typical industry anti-tax propaganda. So long as the minerals are there, people are going to mine them. Paying a 4 to 8% surtax is not going to make much of a difference.Obama is showing a marked lack of principle here. The 1872 Mining Act is one of the nation's worst laws. Environmentalists have been fighting it for decades. It allows mining companies to rape the land and pay next to nothing to the government. When mining companies stake a claim, they have to pay about $5 an acre to the government. It doesn't matter how much gold, uranium, silver, or whatever is underneath. $5 an acre. It amounts to the nation giving away its minerals to private companies for free.Indeed. It's awful public policy, and I'm not even sure that it's good politics. It may play decently in Nevada, but a lot of folks in the Pacific coast states know what the 1872 Mining Act is (Oregon, Washington, and California all have substantial interiors, after all), and properly oppose it. Obama's position won't be popular among those voters, and trading Nevada for Oregon, Washington, or California seems like a poor exchange. --Robert Farley
